Kristian Merenda, MBA

Lecturer on Marketing, Questrom School of Business, Boston University and Senior Vice President of Business and Social Purpose, Edelman

Kristian Darigan Merenda is an expert marketing and organizational development strategist who advises a range of leading global and US companies and NGOs in their efforts to drive mutually-beneficial change for business and society. She has helmed major initiatives, generating returns exceeding $800 million and directing more than $1 billion in charitable assets toward significant social programs. She has worked to establish and grow core departmental human performance competencies within organizations in functions including marketing, public affairs, community relations, corporate social responsibility (CSR), and sustainability.
Some of this work is featured in her book, Breakthrough Nonprofit Branding, which she co-wrote with Carol Cone and in "Corporate Citizenship in China: CSR Challenges in the 'Harmonious Society,'" which she co-wrote with Boston University Professor Emeritus James Post for The Journal of Corporate Citizenship.
She helped found Edelman's Business and Social Purpose Practice, where she works today as senior vice president, global corporate citizenship co-lead, and nonprofit sector executive advisor. She is also an instructor at Harvard Extension School and Boston University's Questrom School of Business. She has been a featured speaker for the Association of Fundraising Professionals, American Marketing Association, Engage for Good, Harvard Business School, Duke, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Her client work has been featured in President William J. Clinton's Giving, Jocelyn Daw's Marketing for Nonprofits, PR News' Top 100 Case Studies in PR, Philip Kotler's Social Marketing, and M.Cass Wheeler's You've Gotta Have Heart. Four of her cases have been published by Harvard Business School and the United Nations.
Prior to Edelman, she was central to the build out of the cause branding practice at Cone, LLC, and has held related senior posts in the private and public sectors.